What is the meaning of this Law?

B

beautifulman

Joined
May 20, 2014
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hello there!

i own a pair of daggers, and a katana sword that i want to bring with me to hong kong in a few months (i'll be living and working there)

i found some laws regarding the legality of owning blades and knifes there, from what i've seen it sorta looks like it's not allowed there, can anyone give these laws a good read and let me know if i'm on the right track here?


Under the Weapons Ordinance (HK Laws. Chap 217), certain knives are designated as 'prohibited weapons', including:

Gravity knife
Knuckleduster whether spiked or not and with or without blade
Any bladed or pointed weapon designed to be used in a fashion whereby the handle is held in a clenched fist and the blade or point protrudes between the fingers of the fist
Any knife the blade of which is exposed by a spring or other mechanical or electric device

Possession of prohibited weapon is illegal under section 4 of the ordinance and offender is liable to a fine of and to imprisonment for 3 years.
Any Police officers or Customs officers can seize and detain any prohibited weapon.
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to be honest i really want to bring my swords and daggers with me, as i'll be staying there with my dad for quite a while.

what should i do?
A: pack my katana sword with my fishing rods together and tell the shipping company that they are just "fishing rods"?
B: have DHL/UPS ship them to my address in hong kong as "Personal Gifts"

any suggestions would be much appreciated! thank you!
 
I'm no lawyer, so don't take these words of advice and act on them without doing more research. To me it sounds like what they are describing is a brass knuckle type device with a blade attached to it.
 
I could be incredibly wrong on this as i am no lawyer, so do not quote me on this, but i think what that is describing is push daggers.
 
Yeah, that definitely sounds like push daggers and related stuff. Also, you should also find out if double-edged blades are legal there, since you mentioned that you have some daggers.
 
Agree with above. Just don't put the blade of the dagger between your fingers and you're fine... actually, you can't even do that AND grip a dagger handle so, it's clear they aren't talking daggers here. And definitely not swords... more research should certainly be conducted but, sounds fine.
 
I would research the law very thoroughly, see if there's limits on blade length, or limits on double edged blades, etc, but the section you highlighted sounds almost certainly to be referring to push daggers, not regular daggers or swords.

If that section you listed is the full rules in regards to blades, it looks like the prohibited ones are balisongs, automatics(and possibly assisted openers, the wording is unclear, but I wouldn't chance it), trench knives(and any form of plain brass knuckles), and push daggers. At least based on what you quoted there, normal daggers and swords are fine.
 
beautifulman said:
A: pack my katana sword with my fishing rods together and tell the shipping company that they are just "fishing rods"?
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You're not really listing the contents for the sake of the shipping company. You're doing it for the customs official who could possibly open your box and look inside. Do not lie to customs. Just don't.
 
Your swords are not even knives, so the piece of HK rules that you cite in the first post may not include them!
You can call it "Personal gifts" or whatever you like for DHL/UPS, or hide it among your fishing rods: that does not make any difference for Chinese customs. I suspect they may be advanced enough to use something like x-ray, it's not exactly a rocket science, you know!
I think they may get very serious about 3 years in jail if they think you have tried to smuggle some prohibited weapons in their country, it's not even just possession, right! And of course they may be still quite sensitive to it after some railway terminal incident involving mass stabbing in one of their provinces. The good news is that they have a special prison there for foreigners, so it should not be that terrible.
So decide for yourself: if it is worth it!
 
first of all ,
i would like to offer my most sincere gratitude to all of you for helping me, thank you all so much for your help! i truly appreciate it!

DShiflet said:
I would research the law very thoroughly, see if there's limits on blade length, or limits on double edged blades, etc, but the section you highlighted sounds almost certainly to be referring to push daggers, not regular daggers or swords.

If that section you listed is the full rules in regards to blades, it looks like the prohibited ones are balisongs, automatics(and possibly assisted openers, the wording is unclear, but I wouldn't chance it), trench knives(and any form of plain brass knuckles), and push daggers. At least based on what you quoted there, normal daggers and swords are fine.
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i most certainly hope so, if i can't bring the daggers then at the very least i want my precious katana sword there with me.

The good news is that they have a special prison there for foreigners, so it should not be that terrible.
So decide for yourself: if it is worth it!
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you're absolutely right. i don't want to go to prison, but i love my swords! oh woe is me!


Poez
Your swords are not even knives, so the piece of HK rules that you cite in the first post may not include them!
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ah i see, well i'm going to have to give their embassy a call and see what i can find out about their laws regarding swords.


You can call it "Personal gifts" or whatever you like for DHL/UPS, or hide it among your fishing rods: that does not make any difference for Chinese customs. I suspect they may be advanced enough to use something like x-ray, it's not exactly a rocket science, you know!
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i was hoping that the metallic signature of my five trusty fishing rods would mask my katana sword well enough that they wouldn't be able tell what's inside..

bruce-lee2.jpg


i miss the old days when hong kong was still part of the british empire.

how can they not even let me have my precious swords when they went and made movies like Fist of fury? this isn't fair! ;)


UPDATE:
Hong Kong Police Force - Advice for Tourists
http://www.police.gov.hk/ppp_en/04_crime_matters/cpa/cpa_at_01.html

doesn't look like daggers are listed there, funny how they have harpoons, firecrackers and toy gun caps banned, it's quite a laugh if you ask me. i mean whatever are we going to do with them? start a party? :)
 
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RevDevil said:
Yes, another benefit of actually filling out some basic profile information.
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oh i'm terribly sorry i forgot to mention that i live in canada, in the province of british columbia.. the daggers and swords were originally purchased about 18 years ago, i found the katana inside a thrift store and the daggers were from a place that used to sell antiques.
 
Why not contact the authorities in Hong Kong, and ask them...?
 
beautifulman said:
oh i'm terribly sorry i forgot to mention that i live in canada, in the province of british columbia.. the daggers and swords were originally purchased about 18 years ago, i found the katana inside a thrift store and the daggers were from a place that used to sell antiques.
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Off topic, but I've got to ask- do you know the histories/values of the sword and daggers? The reason I ask is- since you bought the sword in a thrift store there's always the possibility that someone who didn't know swords found it in their father/husband/grandfathers stuff after he died and sold it to the thrift store for a couple of bucks not knowing that it is some highly valuable sword that the guy brought home from Japan as a war trophy. I've seen this happen before.

Before trusting your blades to a shipping company and buying shipping insurance you might want to know if they might be worth tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Just thought I'd mention this in case you hadn't considered it.
 
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Russ Andrews said:
Why not contact the authorities in Hong Kong, and ask them...?
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As it turns out, you were all right!

i finally found the HK customs phone number and contacted them directly, here's they said:

- All kinds of swords/dagger is allowed, with the exception of those that contain spring action / mechanized parts
- Any Sword/Rapier of any length is allowed
- They might still have to inspect it


killgar said:
Off topic, but I've got to ask- do you know the histories/values of the sword and daggers? The reason I ask is- since you bought the sword in a thrift store there's always the possibility that someone who didn't know swords found it in their father/husband/grandfathers stuff after he died and sold it to the thrift store for a couple of bucks not knowing that it is some highly valuable sword that the guy brought home from Japan as a war trophy. I've seen this happen before.
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i never brought it anywhere for appraisal because i considered the possibility that i might have to surrender my sword on request.


before trusting your blades to a shipping company and buying shipping insurance
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oh dear, i forgot how much those worthless bums like to steal people's stuff, especially antiques.
(they get paid thousands of dollars a month yet they'd still pry open people's boxes just to steal rubbish things)

looks like i might just have to leave the sword behind after all. it's not worth losing it to those bums.
 
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